Other Options for Exchange

While we think FractionalExchange.com is the best thing going when it comes to exchanging vacation properties, we thought we’d share some other options with our members and website visitors.

The Registry Collection®

The Registry Collection® (TRC) is probably the best-known exchange company in the fractional ownership industry. Membership is $250 per year and a charge of $250 per exchange is assessed.

Members are limited to exchanging between approved resorts; while quality of their resort selection is high, members are limited to the locations and resorts that choose to affiliate with TRC.

Some of their available resorts are timeshare properties.

The method of exchanging is that you contact them and they check their availability for an exchange. Members “deposit” time with TRC and that constitutes the inventory they draw on to arrange exchanges. For their “deposits,” members earn points and those points are redeemed for exchanges. Membership requires that you be an owner at a participating resort. TRC is owned by RCI, a huge player in the timeshare industry. http://www.theregistrycollection.com/

Pros: Excellent resort quality; decent resort selection.

Cons: Limited to their member resorts; high membership and per-exchange fee; exchange dependent upon their inventory. Deposited inventory from members can sometimes consist of off-season weeks, limiting availability of exchanges. Inclusion of timeshare properties within the collection.

Preferred Residences®

Pretty much the same business model as The Registry Collection® (see above) and cost, Preferred Residences® (PR) is a relatively new entry into the exchange business and as such, does not yet have many participating resorts. PR is owned by Interval International®, another huge player in the timeshare exchange business. http://www.preferredresidences.com/index.html

Pros: Excellent resort quality; good benefits for members.

Cons: Limited to their member resorts (very limited selection); high membership and per-exchange fee.

Resort-to-Resort®

Owned by Intrawest®, Resort-to-Resort® (R2R) seems to have been established mainly to offer exchanging between resorts developed by Intrawest® (a huge player in ski industry real estate and resorts). Their offerings have been expanded to include partner resorts as well. Membership requires that you be an owner at a participating resort. http://www.resort2resort.com/

Elite Alliance®

A collection of resorts (14) sharing an exchange program. $250 per exchange, with members depositing weeks for exchange.

http://theelitealliance.com/

FractionalExchange.com®

Okay, a plug for our concept. FractionalExchange.com® serves as an owner-to-owner “umbrella” network, where members may own anywhere and exchange anywhere.

Many of the resorts listed with the previously mentioned exchange companies are represented on FractionalExchange.com®. We’re the ONLY exchange service where owners at fractional resorts can trade for standalone vacation homes, and owners of vacation homes can trade into fractional resorts. We also keep things simple: we connect owners directly with other owners with the following benefits:

No points

No exchange fees

No limits on location or resorts.

Low membership cost.

FractionalExchange.com is designed around a simple observation: with the popularity of the internet, people want to “go direct” as much as possible.

More to come. We’ll work on expanding this article as research time allows.